The couatl hovered in a loose coil, the brilliant down that covered his brightly colored body gleaming in the last rays of the sun. His long, slender form remained airborne, with only the tip of his plumed tail trailing on the floor. His huge golden wings beat very gently, their trailing plumes floating up and down with each leisurely movement.
Flicking his forked tongue in and out of his mouth, the couatl fixed Erixitl with a level stare. His yellow eyes, vertically slitted, did not blink.
"I have returned — that is what I said," hissed the feathered snake with more than a hint of impatience. "When mortals fail to understand and act upon their circumstances, one such as I — "
"Fail to act!" Erix held her voice low, but her delight became sudden fury that struck the smug couatl like a blow in the face." Who has failed to act? Where have you been since you disappeared in Payit? What do you mean coming here now, on the very night portrayed in my dream, and telling me I have failed to act?" She gestured at Alvarro's corpse, still warm beside her. "Why couldn't you have come an hour ago? Or a tenday ago?"
"That is enough," said Chitikas, with a trace of his old haughtiness. "Let us act now."
"What do you propose?" Erix, her anger not forgotten, regarded the feathered serpent suspiciously.
The sunlight, streaming in from the west, began to fade. Erixitl pictured the full moon, cresting the horizon to the east.
"Perhaps we should go to the roof." The way Chitikas phrased the words, it sounded almost like a question.
"You must tell them to disperse!" Cordell barked. Darien immediately translated, and Naltecona looked at the general with an expression of utmost fatigue.
"You ask the impossible. Can you not see that they have been summoned by a higher command than my own? You yourselves have robbed my voice of the authority it once had. They will not listen to me."
"Do you want to avoid a war?" demanded Cordell, his voice dropping to a menacing snarl. "Or do you want us to unleash our powers against your city?"
Naltecona sighed, a heartbreaking sound. "The unleashing of power is something neither I nor you can any longer control. No, I do not wish to see this war. My dreams have shown me the inevitable result — a disaster for all."
"Then speak to them, Helm curse you!" Cordell snapped the words and then whirled away, struggling to regain his self-control. The Revered Counselor was a proud man, he knew, and one could push a proud man just so far.
Surprisingly, however, Naltecona started for the edge of the roof overlooking the plaza below. He stopped, clearly visible to all the warriors on this, the eastern side of the palace. Though the sun had set, the full moon before him rose into a sky still blue with the fading light of dusk. Naltecona's voice, when he spoke, thrummed with the vibrant power of rulership.
"Hear me, my people!" A dull silence settled over the assembled masses of warriors, extending slowly, like a ripple across a pond, to the far limits of the plaza.
My heart knows the pain you feel, and my soul understands the needs of honor! But this is a time when we must swallow our pain. As for honor, my own allows me to dwell here, as the guest of the foreigners. Does that not prove that we are not dishonored?"
A rumble of displeasure rose from the Nexalans. Below them, next to the palace wall, the Kultakans nervously fingered their weapons.
"I must ask you to to show patience — more patience even than you have shown already. I understand the difficulty of restraint."
Howls of indignation, shrieks, and whistles of anger, all these sounds erupted from the multitude of warriors and priests gathered below. Upon many, Naltecona saw the gleaming red scar of the Viperhand. The cult seemed to lead the way, but the counselor knew that all Nexal stood prepared to follow.
"I have seen the future! If we follow the path of war, only disaster can follow — disaster such as our fathers could not have imagined!" Naltecona's voice grew strident as he strived to make himself understood. "My people, listen to me!"
But by now it was already too late.
Full darkness settled over the room before the sinuous body of Chitikas Couatl encircled Erixitl. The feathered snake drove his wings with that same leisurely beat. Yet somehow, without visible effort, he propelled himself faster and faster, his rainbow-hued form blurring into a ring of color around her. Sudden light flashed, very bright, in the room.
In the next instant, Erix stood upon the roof of the palace, still encircled by the whirling Chitikas. The Cloak of One Plume billowed outward. The snake quickly floated to a stop, coiled in the air beside her, but she had already forgotten him.
Instead, her eyes locked onto the scene before her — the exact image of her dream!
Nahecona stood at the edge of the flat roof, against the rim of wall, perhaps two feet high, that encircled this portion of the palace. The peak of thatch towered behind her, sheltering Chitikas and Erixitl in its shadow.
The rest of the area, of course, stood clearly illuminated in the pale wash of the just-risen full moon. Cordell, Darien, the Bishou, and the dwarven captain, Daggrande, stood around the Revered Counselor in a loose semicircle. Beyond them, filling the plaza like a thick carpet of humanity, seethed the warrior mass of the Nexala.
Erixitl stared as cold, inexorable fear gripped her soul. She felt as though she was observing a play on a stage, a performance aloof and detached from her involvement. She could do nothing as events unfolded.
Then she shook her head, her black hair floating tike a cloud around her. She had been brought here for a purpose, she knew. In her determination to act, she had overlooked a thing she had learned before.
The purposes of Chitikas Couatl were not given easily to understand.
"Push! The cursed thing has to open!" urged Halloran, below Poshtli on the narrow ladder.
"I–I can't move it" gasped the warrior, slumping away from the tightly shut trap door above them.
"Let me try!" Hal squeezed to the side as Poshtli dropped several rungs to allow his companion to reach the top.
Hal feared for the destruction of this land, for he believed implicitly in Erixitl's premonition. But mostly he drove himself forward because of fear for her and bitter hatred for those who imprisoned her and threatened all his hopes. He had to reach her!
Feathermagic pulsed around his wrist. His fist crashed upward, and the trap door cracked in two, each piece flying back from the opening. He sprang through the opening, drawing Helmstooth in the same motion, not knowing whether they had reached a palace chamber, courtyard, or garden.
Or roof. He looked around at a broad, flat expanse. He saw a group of legionnaires some distance away and heard a vague rumbling from the vast square around them. The sound had apparently masked the noise of his emergence from the soldiers, for none of the men-at-arms turned toward him. Swiftly Poshtli, and then Shatil, climbed from the trap door.
They were on the roof of a palace, Hal saw the palace of Nahecona's father, Axalt. They hadn't wandered as far as Hal had feared during their subterranean explorations. He saw the Revered Counselor, apparently addressing the unruly gathering below. Slowly, with shocking awareness, he took in the huge numbers of warriors gathered across the plaza.
"There must be a hundred thousand of them!" he breathed in awe.
"More," Poshtli said quietly, his trained warrior's eye assessing the throng.
"Where is my sister?" Shatil wondered, looking quickly around.
Crouching where they stood, the moon casting their shadows long across the roof, they searched the area with their eyes. They saw dozens of legionnaires and their captains, together with the wizard and the Bishou. All stared at the drama before them, sensing Naltecona's failure to appease the crowd. Most of the roof lay exposed to the cool moonlight, though the thatched peaks left a few areas of deep shadow.
"She's not here," Halloran said nearing despair.
"Look!" Poshtli whispered, pointing to the crowd below. They saw the Nexalans surging angrily toward the palace, a stormy sea of humanity around their pe
rilous island. Yet the warriors did not attack. "Erixitl's dream — the death of Naltecona among the legion! It could happen now!"
Hal shook his head. "I can't believe Cordell would have him killed. Not now, not like this. Naltecona is the only thing holding them at bay."
"Hey! You over there!"
The harsh bark of a sentry told them that they had been discovered. Halloran whirled to see several crossbowmen, their heavy weapons menacing, advancing from the opposite portion of the roof.
"It's Halloran!" shouted one of the sentries. Instantly the attention of the captains turned toward the trio, clearly illuminated in the bright moonlight. For a moment, Hal thought of diving through the dark trap door beside them. The three of them could easily disappear into those narrow tunnels.
But that course was an admission of failure, and he wasn't ready to admit that they had failed. He saw Darien, her pale face studying them coolly, and he remembered her spellbook in his pack. He seized upon a desperate hope.
"I want to talk to you," he called, meeting Cordell's eyes.
"Come forward," said the captain-general cautiously. "Keep your hands in plain sight." He watched them approach for several moments. "That's close enough."
Hal, flanked by Poshtli and Shatil, stopped about ten paces short of his old commander. Beside Cordell, he saw the albino elfmage, still regarding him with a gaze so devoid of emotion it reminded Halloran of a reptile's.
The crowd beyond the palace surged noisily. Naltecona turned away from them, regarding the confrontation curiously.
"I want to make a trade," Halloran said, looking at Darien. "I have your spellbook — and you have a person who means very much to me… to us. I offer you the book in return for the woman."
Cordell looked at Darien, an expression of cool interest on his face. The wizard, to the surprise of all of them, began to laugh. The sound had a cruel, harsh ring to it.
"We must go to them!" whispered Erixitl, her voice straining with urgency. "There is little time!"
"Wait," said Chitikas calmly. They remained in the dark shadow below a peak of the roof, unseen by the others before them.
Erix looked at the couatl in surprise, then shook her head vehemently. "I'm going!"
She started forward, sensing the snake sigh heavily beside her. After one step, however, her foot stuck to the planks below her. She tried to turn on Chitikas and found her other foot equally immobilized. She couldn't move.
Twisting her body, she angrily opened her mouth to demand that he free her. But no words came forth. He held her spellbound.
"Wait" ordered the couatl again. "We cannot be seen yet."
And Erix could only turn to watch, as dull horror rose within her soul.
"What is the humor?" the captain-general asked his mistress. "I should think it a sensible exchange — your spellbook for Halloran's woman."
"The humor is in this man's foolish naivete!" Darien barked, her mouth still twisted in grim amusement. Her eyes, however, remained cold and lifeless.
Halloran felt a chill of fear.
"He is in my power now," Darien continued. "Without the wench to protect his body, my magic can tear the secret of the spellbook from his mind!
"But before your soul becomes mine," she added, "there is another thing you should know."
Now Halloran's blood froze in his veins, and he imagined her words before she spoke.
"Your woman is already dead!"
"What?" demanded Cordell. "She was under my protection. How dare you-"
"Your protection?" Darien scoffed. "Like the legion is under your protection — the safety of your wisdom, your keen planning?"
"What do you mean? Explain yourself!" Cordell growled. The legionnaires edged nervously back, never having witnessed such an exchange between the general and his elven mistress.
"You have been a useful tool," she sneered, "but that use is finished. The girl is dead…"
The pause that followed seemed to leave room for the sun to rise and set, yet still that bright, full moon hung suspended in the sky.
"And know this," Darien continued, almost conversationally. "There will be war."
Suddenly she raised her finger and barked a sharp, magical command. A bolt of hot magic burst like an arrow from her finger, slashing forward to explode in her victim's chest. Another, and a third, and still more magic missiles darted forth. Each struck deep into her target's blistered skin, crackling and sizzling with arcane power, ripping his body apart, driving him backward. Blue sparks hissed while the others stood, shocked and speechless.
As the spell finally waned, Naltecona's torn and bleeding form tottered on the edge of the roof. A sudden hush fell across the mob below. Then, already dead, the mangled figure of the Revered Counselor toppled from the roof to crash to the paving stones of the plaza below.
Magic still sparked across the roof, a residue of the killing power that had slain Naltecona. This power sizzled as light, flaring upward and then falling back, casting everything alternately in brightness and shadows.
As the light pulsed, Halloran stared at Darien, watching her in stunned, disbelieving shock. In the brightness, her skin gleamed with the alabaster whiteness caused by her albinism.
Yet in the shadows, it seemed to be dark, as black as any drow's.
From the chronicles of Colon:
Now the True Wbrld stands poised at the brink of chaos. My fingers tremble, and my brushes move unsteadily across the page. I must put them down, and I hold my breath as the fate of the land takes shape.
BLACK AND WHITE
Erixitl suddenly broke her feet free, and she instantly ran from the shadows into the bright moonlight, toward those clustered at the edge of the roof. Around her, the city seemed frozen, strangely paralyzed. "Hal!" she cried.
Whirling, his face split into a look of disbelief, then disbelieving happiness. He shouted, "Erix! You're alive!" then swept her into his arms. His relief turned to fury, and again he turned to Darien.
He saw the wizard's face then, twisted into a look of shock, dismay… and fear.
"No!" Darien gasped, her voice a strangled choke.
"You treasonous witch!" Daggrande howled, looking at the place where Naltecona had stood. "You've killed us all!" From below, howls of outrage erupted from the Nexalan masses. They surged toward the palace, blind rage growing quickly into battle frenzy.
"What — what have you done?" Cordell gaped at her.
"What are you?" asked Bishou Domincus, softly, fearfully.
Holding Erixitl at his side, Halloran studied the albino elf. He saw the other legionnaires, with their expressions of shock and anger and disbelief — and, slowly, growing fear as the rage of the Nexalans swelled from the plaza around them.
He alone understood.
"You're one of them, aren't you?" he stated quietly. "An Ancient One. A dark elf. That's why you avoid the sun, not because of your delicate skin. You've planned this for a long time."
The wizard, still gaping at Erixitl, didn't reply. Cordell, however, regarded Hal with confusion that the man found almost pathetic. "What do you mean? What are you saying?"
"I'm saying that you have been manipulated — used by the drow who seek to gain control of Maztica. Those who sought to start the war that would tear this land apart and give them ultimate mastery."
The sounds from the plaza below, where Naltecona's death and fall had been plainly visible, indicated that the war had indeed begun.
The sign! Hoxitl, watching from his lofty vantage on the Great Pyramid, saw Naltecona outlined in deadly magic, witnessed the grotesque dance of his assassination, and then observed the limp corpse tumble to the plaza below.
So did thousands of Nexalan warriors. For a prolonged moment, the square fell still from the shock. Then a rumble shook the ground as a burst of smoke billowed upward from Zatal's summit, and finally the high priest lifted his voice in a long, ululating call. Instantly the members of his cult — perhaps one in every five of the assembled warriorhood —
understood the order.
The branded ones echoed the call and raised their weapons. Their fury and battle lust spread contagiously, and in another moment, the cult surged forward to attack. As Hoxitl had known they would, the other warriors of Nexal immediately followed.
A great wave of humantide swept across the sacred plaza, converging on the Palace of Axalt. A din of stomping feet, screaming voices, whistles, and wooden-hafted weapons clashing in rhythmic cadence rocked the center of the city. The volume of sound could surely, the priest thought, be heard by the gods themselves.
The Kultakan and Payit warriors allied with the legion suffered the first onslaught of Nexal, quartered as they were outside the palace. The Kultakans guarded the north and east sides of the structure, while the Payit were encamped to the west. This pleased Hoxitl, let the foreigners see the fate of their allies and know what was in store for themselves.
The Kultakans, braced for war, launched volleys of stone-tipped arrows into the approaching mass. Many Nelalan warriors fell, but in seconds, the two forces clashed in melee. Feathered headdresses waved above the fight, marking the line between the two nations, but soon the colors mingled in confused slaughter.
Hoxitl watched the battle, his features flushed with transcendent ecstasy. Zaltec would be well pleased.
Thousands of men whirled through a dance of death, macas chopping, stone daggers thrusting, all illuminated by the bright, eerie moonlight. Spears, arrows, and stones flew above the tide of warriors, landing indiscriminately among the packed ranks. Cries of the wounded, shrill howls of triumph, and hoarse shouts of warning all blended into a battlefield cacaphony.
Blood spread slick on the paving stones, glistening like black oil. The bright moon rose higher into the sky, covering the whole gory scene with its mockingly pristine glow.
The five thousand warriors of the Payit, on the west side of the palace, couldn't stand long against the rush. Fragmented by the shock of the attack, these spearmen tried to hold a line but soon found themselves fighting in small islands, surrounded by the hordes of Nexalans.
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